Stand Up for Environmental Justice in 2023


Earth Day, April 22nd, 2023 is a time for us to recommit ourselves to working for a clean, safe, life-sustaining natural environment and the planet. It is also a time for us to remember those Black and other People of Color communities which have shouldered the overwhelming majority of toxic environmental dumping, toxic releases, hazardous chemical corporate site developments and negative health impacts. We must commit ourselves to be active participants in environmental justice organizations and the Environmental Justice Movement and fight for its principles listed below.


Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted these 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, the Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.


WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to ensure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice: 


The Principles of Environmental Justice (EJ) 

1) Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction. 

2) Environmental Justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias. 

3) Environmental Justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things. 

4) Environmental Justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food. 

5) Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples. 

6) Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and containment at the point of production. 

7) Environmental Justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation. 

8) Environmental Justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards. 

9) Environmental Justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care. 

10) Environmental Justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide. 

11) Environmental Justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination. 

12) Environmental Justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of resources. 

13) Environmental Justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color. 

14) Environmental Justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national corporations. 

15) Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms. 

16) Environmental Justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives. 

17) Environmental Justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to ensure the health of the natural world for present and future generations. 


More info on environmental justice and environmental racism can be found online at www.ejnet.org/ej/.

Dispatches From the Culture Wars – Education Special

Public schools are a political battleground


Portside.org

This is a must for us all! Join the FOLWCC and COC to unite and organize against

the local N.C. current racist white supremacist legislative and organized rightwing

political efforts to erase, ban and shut our people's continued fight for human rights down!


READ ON and call or email us!

Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center Volunteer Team

Across the country, Black history is under attack — from parents trying to remove classroom lessons about Rosa Parks and Malcolm X to schools banning books about Black people.


That’s why the FRUIT OF LABOR WORLD CULTURAL CENTER supports those like COC teamed up with the National Education Association for the latest episode of the Black History Now Live series


"It features a powerful conversation between Valerie Bolling, an award-winning educator and author targeted by far-right groups for her work, and Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, Color Of Change’s vice president of corporate campaigns, programs and research.

In case you missed the premiere Monday night, you can stream it now on Color Of Change’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.


Bolling talks about what’s at stake when books are banned and school curricula are devoid of Black narratives. Banning books, Bolling says, “is really an injustice because it erases children. It erases their families. It deprives them of the opportunity to see themselves in books and it also deprives their peers of the opportunity to learn about people who are different from themselves.”

She also discusses her own experience in the crosshairs of the far-right and her stand to protect truth in education.


This episode in the Black History Now Live series shines a light on the critical need to protect Black history in education.


You also can stream the first four episodes in the series. They include Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson talking with law professor and scholar Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Howard University Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story.” Also Dr. Brandi Waters and Steve Bumbaugh of The College Board in conversation with Ogunnaike about the importance of creating and preserving a historically accurate and inclusive curriculum for students everywhere. And Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka, a clinical psychologist and founder of PsychoHairapy, a practice linking Black women’s hair and mental health, talking with COC’s Chief Communications Officer Amity Paye about how we can protect Black hair in the classroom, in the the C-suite and in the halls of power.


Amplifying these voices is crucial, especially in today’s climate amid the attacks on Black history. Spread the word."


Until Justice Is Real,

The Color Of Change Team

Afrodescendant Sisters Meet in Cuba...

April 2023 CALENDAR OF EVENTS


Tuesday, April 4; Commemoration of the Assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was killed while in Tennessee standing with Black Nashville Sanitation Workers fighting against discrimination and for respect, fair pay and better working conditions.


Wednesday, April 5; 6:00-7:00 PM; "Basic Base Building in Community/Workplace" #101 /Organizing Training for actual activists on the ground at Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center. Call (919) 876-7187 and leave your name and phone number to reserve your space.


Thursday, April 6; 6:00 PM; Raleigh Peoples Budget Coalition Meeting - email raleighpeoplesbudget@gmail.com for more details.


Thursday, April 13; 4:00-6:00 PM; Worker Leadership Development Training at FOLWCC; call (919) 876-7187 for more information and to register.


Friday, April 14; 10:00 AM-4:00 PM; Worker Leadership Development Training at FOLWCC; call (919) 876-7187 for more information and to register.


Friday, April 14; 6:00 -7:00 PM; FINANCIAL HEALTH Workshop series #3  


"The Sum of Us" by Heather McGhee is the next financial health workshop book for reading.

Saturday, April 15; 2:00-7:00 PM; Spring Justice Jam, Earth Day Celebration & Cornbread, Fish & Collard Greens Social Justice Fish Fry Fundraiser! We’re back with LIVE MUSIC! This month, we’ll have live music, dancing, games/trivia and discussion about the principles of Environmental Justice. Plates are $12, sandwiches are $7; please RSVP to (919) 876-7187 and order early. Plates go quickly! Musical performances are free, but donations to show your love for the artists will be greatly appreciated!


Sunday, April 16; 4:00-5:00 PM; Black Workers for Justice Women’s Commission Working Group hosts part 3 of a book review and discussion of What’s Love Got to Do With It - a book by Donna Franklin about the relationships between Black men and women. The discussion will take place virtually via zoom and in person at the FOLWCC. Contact Willie at (252) 640-0944 for more information and to register.


Friday - Sunday, April 21 -23; Southern Workers Assembly (SWA) Workers Organizing School. Charlotte, NC; email: info@southernworker.org for more information and to register. Also, the Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble will be there bringing the spirited party with music with a message!


Tuesday, April 25; 5:30 -7:00 PM; The Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center’s Community Solidarity Garden Club is back this year educating our community about getting away from industrial agricultural producers and corporate food industry who use harmful chemicals to grow the food we purchase in retail grocers and about how to grow healthy organic produce in our own backyards. We will celebrate Earth Day and sponsor a Gardening by the Bucket interactive class on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at 5:30 PM. There will also be a special presentation on how to grow mushrooms. The class will be taught in the FOLWCC parking lot near our community garden and led by our FOLWCC volunteer, Abasi Brown, and UE 150/BWFJ expert gardening enthusiast, Ciscero Warren! When we are finished, your portable “bucket garden” will be planted and you’ll be on the road to providing healthy food for your family and yourself!



Sunday, April 30; BWFJ sponsored pre-May Day/International Worker Day Celebration M.L. King, Jr’s Support for Labor Webinar: Black Workers in the Center of the Storm; email: info@blackworkersforjustice.org for more information.

Reserve the Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center for your Special Event!



The Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center is the perfect beautiful venue for your special event. Contact us today for information about our very reasonable rates and availability. Call (919) 876-7187, 919-231-2660 or

email Fruitoflaborwcc@netscape.com.

AVAILABLE NOW!

Music and songs that inspire, engage, and liberate our spirit!


Enjoy Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble’s Album: State of Emergency


The album is available on

Amazon, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio 

and many more streaming services and retailers. 

Randall Robinson, Founder of TransAfrica and

Author of 'The Debt: What America Owes' passes (1941-2023)


Presente!


“We, who believe in our OWN liberation, our freedom and our Demand for Reparations, cannot rest till we have even greater victories,” 

 

We have lost yet another fighter in the struggle for our people and Black/ African liberation struggle. Some of us 1960's-70's elder Black Liberation Movement activists were members of the legendary initial 1970's AFRICAN LIBERATION SUPPORT COMMITTEE (ALSC...a Black-led grassroots anti-imperialist political coalition that convened in Black institutions ie. Franklinton Center, Enfield, NC, Howard University, DC, etc.) and later continued to work in 1980's-90's "new coalitions" to end white supremacist apartheid South Africa.


As we attended some of the protest marches and civil disobedience direct actions held by TransAfrica Forum (a mostly foundation-funded project) in the 1980s-90s, new leading advocate Randall Robinson and staff at the Trans Africa Awards held its banquets at the Washington Hilton. It was Robinson who used these occasions with greater media attention than ALSC  that projected and offered celebrities the rare opportunity to have a more visible political platform like Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica, Allan Bosak of South Africa, Rep Kweisi Mfume and US Secretary Brown, Dorothy Height, Dr. Ben Chavis, etc. This shifted the political perspective from a left anti-imperialist understanding of this movement to a more liberal orientation. Nevertheless, Robinson

had a significant role in this rebirthed movement.

 

Randall Robinson and Trans Africa Forum played a significant role in South Africa's transition from apartheid and crucial support for Haiti's Aristede while in exile and his return to power. Randall's political works speak for his perspective and are well stated by Nkechi 's account of him in the "Diaspora for the Race". May we learn valuable lessons from his Africa Policy Advocacy works. May his transition renew our continued study, collective assessment and fighting spirit to keep the fires of African Liberation from corporate imperialism, neo-colonialism and reparatory justice burning forever.

 

We, who believe in freedom, complete liberation from all oppression and Reparations can not rest till we have even greater victories.


*Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica (the anti-apartheid organization in the U.S.), and author of The Debt: What America Owes Us. Check it out.

 

Excerpt: 

“Just as he was as significant in South Africa advocacy and for democracy in Haiti, Robinson was also instrumental in elevating the issue of reparations amongst moderate Blacks such as Dorothy Height, while the more anti-imperialist and left National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) was galvanizing the grassroots masses of the Black working class. His 2000 groundbreaking book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, published fourteen years before Ta-Nehisi Coates’ treatise in The Atlantic magazine, “The Case for Reparations,” and twenty years before the murder of George Floyd, was the first to catapult the issue into the white policy arena."


N'COBRA National Website: https://www.officialncobraonline.org/

De La Soul and The Roots: Stakes Is High